Is Iran Following Hitler’s Playbook on Negotiating?

By

Peter Brown

Sep 30, 2009 7:00 am ET

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

Historical analogies are wonderful tools for journalists, and sometimes they are even useful for government decision makers. The problem, of course, is that no two situations are ever exactly the same, so warnings about history repeating itself are always a judgment call.

That’s why those who see the Iranian nuclear buildup as reminiscent of Germany’s rearmament in the period before World War II can be so sure of the need to stop President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at any cost while others see it as a problem but are not convinced of the need for drastic action.

The parallel that comes to mind immediately is that Mr. Ahmadinejad is a virulent anti-Semite. Seven decades ago, Adolph Hitler began slaughtering six million Jews and the same number from other ethnic groups that he also couldn’t stand. Today, Mr. Ahmadinejad makes clear he wants to wipe Israel off the map. While that is certainly a horrendous possibility, the U.S. has made clear to Iran it would not allow that to happen. Should Iran launch an unprovoked attack, one assumes the American response would be instantaneous.

But from the policy-making point of view, the possible similarity that should be the most worrisome is whether Iran is copying the German game plan from the early and mid-1930s. In those years, Hitler played for time, knowing that Germany was too weak to defend itself had the allies stood up to him…

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